crucify destiny
by light of a firefly
Summary: destiny is changing. the time line is altering. love is blossoming. tragedy is breeding. AU but strict attention towards anime canon. Yaten/Minako, Seiya/Usagi, Taiki/Ami.


This was his daughter, his second rival, the beauty in the eyes of her mother on her face. The scowl from too much heat was curled on her lips, and he could see his reflection in her spirit, just from watching her for the departing last moments of the sun outside. When he first met her, fifteen years ago, he had felt like his life had only been half-full up until that moment. Becoming a parent wasn't something he had fully been geared up to do, but he felt the transition to be one of ease with a few bumps along the way.

His daughter dreamt of the new Kinmoku often. Vast layers of green brush, with trees and scents of olive blossoms that tickled her nose under blue skies. The fragrance was one of her favorites, and when she woke up, and described it to him - he recalled it well before and after the destruction of the planet. When she'd ask about the old condition of the planet, Yaten wouldn't elaborate. He'd only urge her to focus on the sweet dreams of her childhood on the planet, as well as the stories that then crowned Queen would tell her.

She's restless, after her downward travel to Earth, which is nothing like Kinmoku. She's bewildered by the culture and the loud noise, and the technology, but it's something he urges her to take into consideration and adapt. Earth was where her mother was reborn onto and grew up on. It was safe on Earth, hence why it was in her parents desire for her to travel there. He'd warned her that she'd see many familiar faces in the past, younger, seeming more human than anything else, and this of course may startle her.

"One day you're going to awaken. You have a lot of myself in you, but you're your mother's child." He said to her, and she had wrapped her mind around several ways to interept the words.

When she appears on earth, she'll still feel her father's subtle embrace and her mother's warm hands against her cheeks and shoulders. This is when her new path begins, and she feels her shoulders heavy but braces herself to face whatever would come her way.

"The others will be there shortly."

She spends her last day on Kinmoku watching Kakyuu pick fragrant flowers in a woven basket - to be used later on in jam making. One, by one, petals fall, and her eyes flood up towards the sky. She's nervous, and Kakyuu can sense that, but Kakyuu had a presence much like her own mother did, that would calm her nerves.

"Princess Kakyuu, can you tell me, that one story again, of how my parents came to be?"

"You're thinking of her again, Healer." Kakyuu's words were playful, her tone soft as she caught the woman star gazing from the Kingdom's wide windows. Kakyuu referred to the windows as the archways to Heaven - where her Starlights would gather often when they were thinking too hard and needed some sort of relief. Healer abruptly jerked herself away from the window, startled eyes gazing towards her Princess with knitted brows, lips thin with denial.

"I'm thinking of nothing." Healer protested, with her fingers tightly gripped the pane of the window, joints tight as her body language told of a different story. For days she had been plagued with thoughts of that one woman, that woman who had taught her what it could mean to open up. Though Healer was firm with her self-control. Her whole reason she had been on that blue planet, was to serve and find Kakyuu. Now that she had, there was nothing else to think about.

Right?

Kakyuu sees different, and she's standing behind Healer without haste. "My dear Healer, your happiness is important to me too. I know of your love for me, but your heart is speaking much louder these days. You have a choice, which I gave you in the beginning, when I first saw you by this window."

Healer is silent for a long time, her words echoing against her ears. Stubbornly, she looked away, feeling a violent wave of blood rush through her veins. Excitement, hesitation, anger, frustration - everything bombarded her at once. She re-called her last time on Earth. She re-called looking at her, and she looking back at her - compassion and adoration in those eyes. When she had stepped forward, told her solemnly she'd miss her the most, when she had wrapped her ribbon around her hand. She still had that ribbon, and re-called how tight her hand had clenched around it mid-travel across the galaxy.

Minako was present with her everywhere. In her body, and in the stars. Her loyalty to Kakyuu kept her from seeking her out again, and Kakyuu was fully aware of what this tragic emotion did to a body. It made it fragile.

"Go."

Healer breathed in. By Earth standards, it would've been two years. What if during those two years, Minako had moved on with her life? This was always a possibility that she had considered before. Had she became that idol, that bright star that she had always strided to be? The twinge of worry caused her stomach to knot in discomfort.

"Follow your heart." Kakyuu urged, after seeing the worry that plagued those eyes behind her bangs.

Would venturing back towards Earth, this time alone, would it cause her more tragedy, or more happiness? Though she couldn't spend her years wondering 'what if'.

"Princess-"

"You'll always be a Sailor Soldier. For now, chase what you desire the most."

She'd leave tonight, and become, Kou Yaten.

Healer couldn't seek the stars to calm the crashing that was her heart as it pulsed within her chest. She was going back.


End file.
